


Just Like Books With Broken Spines

by DichotomyStudios



Series: Snapshots [5]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Arguing, Family Drama, Friendship/Love, Gen, Makeup, Navy, SEALs, U.S. Navy SEALs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DichotomyStudios/pseuds/DichotomyStudios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buck is having the worst day of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Like Books With Broken Spines

**Author's Note:**

> * This snapshot was taken while Chris is in his last year at the US Naval Academy and Buck is serving as enlisted Navy seaman, home-based at Norfolk, Virginia.   
> * Thank you, B, for everything, always. The title is brought to you by the American soldier staple:
> 
> _My heart’s like an open book  
>  for the whole world to read,  
> Sometimes nothing keeps me together  
> at the seams…_
> 
> “Home Sweet Home” - Motley Crue

It had been years since Buck smoked a cigarette. It was his mother’s thing, really, and she’d only caught him the one time, all but slapping it out of his mouth and stomping the butt into the sidewalk while delivering a 160 mile-per-hour sermon about the dangers of nicotine on a teenage boy’s lungs. The girl Buck had been trying to impress had run off as soon as his mother changed the subject to second hand smoke. Neither female had talked to him for days.

He watched the cigarette burn for a few seconds, then sucked in a fast, hard drag—and choked endlessly. His eyes watered badly enough to kaleidoscope the grey airstrip, green horizon, and blue sky. The cigarette tasted just as bad as the last one he’d had. What an awful habit, he thought, and kept smoking, stopping every once in a while to flick the ashes into the cold air where they disintegrated and spun away, chasing each other on the wind.

Their cargo loaded and long-since secured, ground support had gone except one lonely vehicle. He watched the crew and sympathized with their boredom. It was the first MAC flight he’d ever seen where he was the only passenger. Usually they were teeming with active duty personnel, officers and enlisted alike all vying for a cheap, fast military hop, crammed into every available space like cattle on a train.

The pilot appeared at his side on the ramp, offering a stern countenance and a small metal container where Buck sheepishly dropped his cigarette. He was moved to apologize for smoking--the air still smelled like fuel, after all--but the steady roar of the C-130’s engines made it a moot point. Even if he hadn’t inserted the disposable ear plugs conversation would have been near impossible. For once that suited him just fine. For once he had nothing to say.

A white government van appeared at his periphery. It lurched to a stop for a few seconds before speeding away, leaving behind another man in dress blues.

Chris. Clipboard in one hand, old sea bag in the other, shifting his weight against the propeller blast and looking around the tarmac like he’d been dropped at the wrong stop.

They scowled at each other and—noise and earplugs be damned—Buck turned to ask the pilot if _this_ is why the flight had been on hold. But the 1 st Lieutenant had disappeared and the last ground crew were pulling the chocks away from the landing gear as the engine began to pitch a higher whine.

He scrubbed a hand across his face, irritation warring with relief. Irritation won out when Chris marched past him to get on board. One of the flight crew waved Buck up the ramp and together they watched the wide door close, inexorably shutting out the concrete and sunlight, sealing him inside with a handful of strangers and the one old friend he hadn't managed a civil word with for longer than he wanted to think about. It was going to be one hell of a long trip and when the trip was over...

His stomach came alive, clawing around his insides and trying to find a way out until he swallowed everything down mercilessly. He would deal with later _later_.

The ramp shut behind him with a hollow clang he felt more than heard, and he wound his way past crates and tarp-covered bulks to the small passenger area that consisted of hard benches against the bare metal hull. He dropped into a seat, resigned to the endless shaking vibrations that would put his legs and ass to sleep, just as Chris appeared from the direction of the cockpit, sitting opposite and away, avoiding eye contact.

Buck watched him and sniffed irritably, the smell of hot oil and cold metal mixing with the aftertaste of cigarette smoke in his throat. The five-man flight crew were busy elsewhere but they could be sitting in the same area and not hear much over the engines. They probably wouldn’t hear Buck asking Chris how he’d managed to get on the flight at the last second, and if he’d had to blow his khaki boyfriend to get him to sign a leave chit. Or maybe they could continue their last discussion about what sort of dumbshit asshole signs on to be a lifer dog in the Navy and then thinks it’s a good idea to fuck his pompous jerk of a C.O.?

Not that Chris had admitted to anything. He’d suckerpunched Buck with an uppercut but that still didn’t answer the question. He hadn’t answered much of anything for a while. Maybe because Buck had stopped asking. There was a good deal of space between them now. Had anybody ever brawled onboard a Hercules before? The crew probably wouldn't hear that, either.

Chris stood, lurching and grabbing for the center metal support as the plane started to taxi, and came directly to Buck. Chris raised his hand and Buck braced himself, half expecting the fight they’d never finished but, no, Chris was offering a stick of gum. To chew when the cabin pressure changed. So it wouldn’t hurt his ears.

The silver rectangle waved impatiently until Buck snatched it away, and Chris sat stiffly at Buck’s side, hands locked tightly over the clipboard he held on his lap. They bounced along the runway for a few minutes, and Buck relaxed, glancing at the papers peeking out from between Chris’ wide palms. Then he noticed Chris’ white knuckles. When he looked at Chris, Chris looked away, and Buck grimaced, pulling at the board until Chris reluctantly released it.

He was unsurprised to see Chris' fussy attention to details. Names and addresses, phone numbers, and an itinerary. On the next sheet there were arrangements. Some rental service and a flower shop in Las Vegas. Base accommodations already in place at Nellis. He sucked in a stuttered breath, more grateful than he could say.

There was a copy of Chris’ leave chit. Not hand signed by his chain of command but stamped and notated by the base commander. Something barely legible scribbled in red and a direct phone number to General Larabee.

Chris _had_ pulled strings. But he’d gone to his father to have them yanked good and hard.

Buck stared at the paper and flushed hotly, caught between the embarrassing, painful swell in his chest and the extent of what had been done. Chris had always sworn he’d be goddamned for life if he asked the General for any kind of stepping stones, _ever_ —but he’d done it for Buck.

He shook his head, saying no to too many emotions, inexplicably feeling lost and found at the same time, and Chris answered with a nod and a sad smile. His watery eyes said there were no regrets. It was done and it would be okay.

Buck flipped the chit out of the way, a lightheaded sense of relief and dread coming closer as he continued rifling through Chris’ pile of paperwork. There was a copy of Buck’s personal emergency notice from Red Cross near the bottom. He avoided reading it, focusing on the name of a detective and the address to the city morgue all printed in Chris’ neat handwriting, but his chest and throat started twisting like a tornado when he saw two faces grinning up at him from beneath the sheaf of papers. It was his mother in her waitress uniform. She was making a silly kissy face, one arm crooked around Buck’s neck pulling him down until their cheeks were smashed together and Buck was rolling his eyes at the ceiling. Chris had snapped the photo after his high school graduation ceremony, but Buck had never seen it. Until now.

He barely registered Chris pulling the clipboard away, but he felt Chris grab onto his hand and squeeze until his bones creaked. It was good to feel something besides anger and despair and the endless, terrifying loneliness, or the sharp edge of empty regrets for things left unsaid, undone.

The plane leaned into takeoff and Buck leaned into Chris who stubbornly defied gravity and centrifugal force to push back, hugging them together tightly, taking care to cradle Buck’s head down to his shoulder. Buck unintentionally nosed into Chris’ hair, hiding his face against the curve of Chris’ neck where it was warm. It was the familiar smell that undid him. It was the instant memories of another time and place where he could still hear his mother laughing, where she was still alive.

There in the safe circle of Chris’ arms he finally came apart like the cigarette ashes on the wind, sobbing uncontrollably and crying out his broken heart in long, loud wails that nobody but Chris would ever hear.


End file.
